The War Department hoped to make a point.There was a desperate need for better,safer,and faster highways in America.Eisenhower considered the highway systm important for the American public but he thought " our roads ought to be avenues of escape for people living in big cities threatened by aerial attack or natural disaster, but I knew that if such a crisis occured, our highways,too small for the flood of traffic of an entire city's people going one way, would turn into traps of death and destruction".Even though excellent roads would hardly address the large-scale disaster of a nuclear war. the political climate during the Cold War added weight to the civil defense arguments in support of the highway bill.In the end, the Interstae Highway
